First Look: Hero's Game: it's a bitch

No dates yet. Worked in games too long to not know better than to announce before there's a firm release date.
But, the Chapter One/Demo game is in sight, and I feel comfortable enough to start talking about it now.

Hero's Game: it's a bitch is a working title at this stage. Ryona folks can probably put the right emphasis on the 'bitch' in that title without effort. The game runs in the genre of the Violated Hero games and the Monster Girl Quest (Monmusu Quest) games. Combine those two titles, and you can already gather a fair notion of the concept. Our hero faces the 'danger' of being raped by those he fails to defeat. Or sometimes eaten, sucked, killed, fucked, abused, milked, drained, parted out for experiments, or... well...
It's an ugly world out there.

And, perhaps hot surprisingly, it seems most of that ugly world wants your sperm.
Damn.

My game runs along those lines, with a sometimes darker edge perhaps. To elaborate just a bit, one of the titles I had been considering was "My Life As A Cockroach"
It's not a good time to be a human...

Our protagonist is Butch (after Butch Cassidy), a young man born on the day the world was broken, almost 20 years ago. An Alien colony ship crashed on a Hell Gate and the subspace explosion ripped through four realms. The Aliens, intent on their own plans even though crippled by the crash, have released biological agents that have ravaged the human race, most particularly The Heat. The Heat was designed to put humans into perpetual "heat" by a species who didn't understand that we were already wired that way. They consider humans to be nothing but genetic materials for harvest.
The Alien Empiratrix is one of the four known powers vying for control of the world.

The other three powers each come from one of the realms violated by the crash explosion - the Summer Queen of the Fae Realms, the Hell Bitch from the Underworlds, and the Virgin Whore of the Dream realms. A wide variety of 'monster girls' (and some just monsters - beware!) roam the world, some seeking to explore the pleasures of the world now that the gates are open - others seeking revenge for the bloody attack on their homes. And others with no agenda of their own, following the orders of one of the four queens.

The player starts in a small settlement where he considers only 3 people to still be 'human'. The rest have degenerating into rutting beasts or bugshit crazies. He's been having intense dreams, calling him and showing him glimpses of the outer world. Our game begins on the morning he wakes from one of those dreams and determines it's time to leave this dump and find what's calling him.

The Chapter One/Demo version of the game deals with the starting village and the only other human habitation known to the player. The larger world beyond takes place after completing these areas. Of course, two villages might not sound like much, but after adding in the journey between, various quests and opportunities that arise, and the Hidden Quests, there are over 3 dozen encounters with multiple possible outcomes.

Gameplay is visual novel style with a multi-option combat system, allowing, among other options, Attack to Wound or Dominate to Control/Seduce.

Okay. Time for Visual Teasers! <joy> So let's go to some of the paintings we'll be using for the game, shall we?

First, here's a half dozen location backgrounds from the game, reduced from 1280x720 to 640x360, in two strips of three:

Here's a slightly larger shot of a sprite (sorry, couldn't help the pun) displayed on background.

And, to celebrate going public (and a new graphics tablet), here's a group portrait of a dozen of the stars of the Chapter One/Demo. (Two more group portraits of a dozen each to round out the entire 'encounter' cast of the demo game will follow at a later date, when I'm looking to avoid a day of working on the game.)

A quick guide:
BLACK NIGHTMARE
Realm: Dream/UnderworldDreams of the dead, made manifest.
BRUJA
Realm: HumanAdept in Dream Magicks
CYBER GIRL
Realm: AlienScout units developed by the Aliens for the human world.
DEENA
Realm: HumanRavaged by the Alien bio-agent, The Heat. Now left with an intolerable addiction.
ELVEN HUNTRESS
Realm: FaeAdventuress, explorer of the human realm.
FROG GIRL
Realm: FaeTaking advantage of the fertile new realm to make her egg pond.
KITTY
Realm:FaeA young cat girl just going into her first heat, and looking to explore.
LAMIA (GREEN)
Realm: FaeMany Lamia are known to work with/for the Aliens, making excellent hunter/seekers for them.
PIXIE
Realm: FaeA sprite of the forest and woods.
RED NIGHTMARE
Realm: DreamA Dream manifestation in the physical world.
VAMPIRE
Realm: UnderworldWeak and starving, but you can fix that.
ZAMEERA
Realm: AlienA high-caste Alien 'gone native'

Set 2 will likely have more humans in it. You start in human settlements close to major Fae Realm encroachments. So early encounters are weighted to those two realms.

There is no development blog. Rather than divert the energy and resources to maintaining such, I'll update information to the forum.
But, I think this is sufficient for a "First Look" post, yes?